Evil bastards

I’ve been reading a lot lately, mostly online. Following a few blogs and clicking links they put up that lead to other interesting things. It’s like following the rabbit down the hole and into another world, but then there’s another hole, and, rabbit or no, it’s tempting to dive in. So I’m going to post more things i find interesting here. I already posted a few links on Your Daily Adventure. I just read something I thought was really worthwhile and insightful, so I’m putting a link to it here, and maybe I’ll have more than just the one before the night is through.

• Kerry Cohen lives in Portland, OR, has an MFA in creative writing and an MA in counseling psychology, she wrote a book or two and wrote this great posting on the Powell’s Book blog. Oh, and if you don’t click on the link, at least know that she is reading at Powell’s on Wednesday at 7:30.

• Didn’t read this online originally, but it’s interesting. It’s about Google. Obviously, there’s a bit of a spin from the author to make it read a certain way and be entertaining, but it makes one think. At least it made me. Made me think about how maybe the real evil bastards in the world society might be the CEOs, board members and all higher-ups of big corporations. Or at least maybe we should look into what’s happening and what the future holds a little more by examining what’s happening at that level and not just worrying about the Kim Jong-il’s and Saddam Hussein’s of the world. Oh yeah, I used Google’s search engine to look up proper spellings.

Ok, I’m done.

Good to be back

Ah, Portland. It’s good to be back. I wouldn’t have said that a day or two ago. My homecoming was not the most exciting return ever. I was wearing jeans, flip-flops, a short-sleeve shirt and a light jacket as I walked out of Portland International Airport into the gray, steady drizzle that IS Portland. I’ve been freezing my ass off since. I don’t know if it’s because I spent three months in the desert, avoiding the cold weather of a North North American winter, if I just haven’t dressed properly or what. But the cold temperature and high humidity has been killing me. I thought about moving to Tuscon.

Add in jet-lag and a general feeling of “What the hell do I do now?” and you get the idea. But today the sun was shining. That’s happy moment #1. I had some more good coffee, produced by my own hand and 40 pounds of gleaming stainless steel. (Not the first time since I’ve been back, so I guess there were happy moments yesterday–every time I made coffee and felt the rush of making and consuming it cut through the gloom and doom of GRAY and “liquid sunshine.”) So happy moment #2 of the day. And then I decided to go for a bike ride.

There’s something very comfortable about familiar routines, right? We all know it. We’re creatures of habit. It was nice to experience the familiar sensation of getting ready for a ride. I pulled my bike down from the rack, made sure the tires were pumped up and the chain lubed, wiped her down with a rag to clean off the dust, pulled on my undershirt, tights, warm winter jersey and arm warmers. Thin skull cap to keep in the heat and cover my ears. Warm gloves. Shoe covers. Helmet. Glasses. Money and a jacket in the back pocket, along with my cell phone to call for help. This is nice. #3.

And then I hit the road. I decided to do a loop, longer than I probably should after no riding for months and not much physical activity, but I’m always a glutton for punishment on the bike. It feels good. Natural. Like riding a bike. Something you never forget. And it’s a special bike, at least to me. Smooth. I used to race. Everything just feels right. A little discomfort, but nothing I can’t handle. A ride. Happy Moment Number Four. Ahhh.

Riding through familiar neighborhoods, seeing some of the landmarks of Portland, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Hood, the Columbia River, the Willamette, the St. Johns bridge, Broadway, downtown. And these people. The familiar wave from certain motorists who recognize cyclists on the streets and accommodate them. The people wearing funky jackets, boots, hair. “Keep Portland Weird” is a popular bumper sticker. There are rugged individualists, hippies, writers, artists, cyclists, coffee geeks, beer geeks, friendly faces. It’s a city where it’s easy to connect with strangers. I’m waiting at a stop sign for the cross traffic to thin out, next to a woman waiting to turn left in her car. One of the cars crossing the intersection has a window rolled down, the female driver looking around, not sure where to go, I think, talking to her passenger loud enough that I can hear but not tell what is being said. She suddenly decides she needs to turn right halfway through the intersection, still talking, looks to her left at me and the cars that are waiting. It’s humorous to watch so I smile. She laughs a little and smiles back. Little human interactions like that happen all the time, and they’re priceless. Happy moments #5,6,7,8…

It’s good to be back.

Reservoir Dogs in Yellow Vests

I saw something on my way to work this morning that I found very funny. There’s construction all around downtown Portland, so you see people wearing hard hats and yellow safety vests a lot. Walking down the sidewalk near work, what do I see walking toward me but the reincarnation of the lead characters in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs. In this case there happened to be four, not five, but the fifth came trailing along a bit after the rest. They were walking side by side down the street toward me. I couldn’t help it. I thought of the movie and just grinned as they walked past. They weren’t even strutting or doing anything in slow-motion, and I noticed once I was closer that they were most likely engineers or something like that rather than construction workers. They were wearing business-casual clothing and just looked like geeks, so they must have been engineers. And one had glasses. Their pocket-protectors were conspicuously absent.